RuneScape Reinstates Free Trade and Wilderness Features

Players have been complaining for years that RuneScape, an ancient in-browser MMO, had been ruined by the tweaks and subtractions made to it by the developer. They finally had a chance to shape the game that they wanted to see when an official vote was put up, allowing players to decide if they wanted the free trade and wilderness features to return.

A staggering 91 percent of the 1.2 million votes were in favor of both features coming back, which they will on February 1.

"We have the most incredible community of gamers and we wanted to demonstrate how much we value them by handing this game changing decision over to them," said Jagex boss Mark Gerhard. "I firmly believe that the Wilderness represents the ultimate risk versus reward experience in any MMO and the incredible support for the campaign demonstrates that our players agree. It has been fantastic to watch the community mobilise in support of the update and we can now introduce these features certain in the knowledge that they are what our community want."

Free Trade allows players to gift money and items to friends, though it also helps increase the rampant gold farming.

The Wilderness is more reminiscent of Ultima Online, where other players can loot corpses for all of their items. Sounds like fun, unless you're the corpse.